Mounting Support for Green Change-Over at GHS
Photos
I had never really considered myself a true enviornmental "activist", so to speak, until about two weeks ago. When I heard about the company Green Planet Bottling that makes 100% plant water bottles I thought, why not replace plastic Poland Spring water bottles with these water bottles? I decided to write to our headmaster, Mr. Winters, and publicize my efforts through my story "Putting the Green in Greenwich High School."
To date, I have made a lot of contacts and spread awarness for my initiative. Mr. Winters responded to my letter with a lot of enthusiam for the idea, but said that he did not have the power to make the change himself.
Mr. Winters then redirected me to Ms. Vicki Gregg, in the food services department for Greenwich High School. I handed her the proposal and was met again with some very excited feedback. She said she would call Green Planet Bottling as well as research other eco-friendly water bottle alternatives.
Greenwch Green and Clean and the PTAC Green Schools Committee have also reached out to me with wonderful insight and advice.
The next step in this process is to follow up with Ms. Gregg on her research about pricing, contracts, and obstacles that I may encounter in trying to switch to eco-friendly water bottles. I am also going to contact Mr. John Hopkins, the food services director for the Greenwich public schools system, to see if he can keep this initiative alive.
I am open to other contacts if there are Patch users out there who would like to help me. And thank you to everyone who supports my project!
In This Blog Post
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Greenwich Green & Clean
113 Pemberwick Rd, Greenwich, CT -
Greenwich Council of Parent Teacher Associations
290 Greenwich Ave, Greenwich, CT (Havemeyer Building)
Leslie Yager
7:10 am on Tuesday, February 7, 2012
"activist" beats "apathetic" any day. Keep it up!
Sue Levene
11:53 am on Tuesday, February 7, 2012
Great Job Liz! You should encourage students to bring in their own reusable water bottles and boycott buying the Poland Spring bottles until they switch.
Good Luck, it is not easy to navigate and change public bureaucracies.
Poppy Holmes
4:50 pm on Tuesday, February 7, 2012
THis is a great project. Hope you have the tenacity to win over GHS. Poppy Holmes
Rick Nichols
11:28 pm on Tuesday, February 7, 2012
Stay on it Liz. This is forward-thinking stuff, and it's only a matter of time. People like you create positive change, one step at a time. Go for it! Rick Nichols
Jillian Richardson
6:22 pm on Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Awesome idea! I hope ideas this like reach schools like Warde, as well!
Liz Stillman
10:18 am on Thursday, February 9, 2012
Thank you Leslie, Sue, Poppy, Mr. Nicholas, and Jillian! I really appreciate your interest and motivation. I will continue to keep you all updated as I progress further!
Bernard Schneider
10:34 am on Thursday, February 9, 2012
Isn't the below, from a recent letter to the Greenwich Time, a clear improvement on Ms. Stillman's plan?
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To the editor:
The Greenwich High School Environmental Action Club is to be highly praised for their efforts... The best solution to this problem is extremely simple: stop purchasing bottled water.
In the U.S. we're extremely fortunate to have clean water ubiquitously available, and reusable containers are readily accessible to nearly everyone, especially so for the vast majority of Greenwich residents. There is absolutely no need for bottled water.
Companies that profit greatly from the sale of bottled water have wrongly convinced Americans that bottled water is a necessary convenience, and their marketing efforts further attempt to convince us that the best solution to the extraordinary amounts of bottle waste is to increase the amount of recycling. They purposefully exclude discussion of solutions that might decrease their sales or profits.
Please support the Greenwich High School Environmental Action Club by using reusable water containers whenever possible and limiting, or hopefully entirely stopping, your purchase of bottled water.
Joel Collamer
Greenwich
Leslie Yager
10:59 am on Thursday, February 9, 2012
Invite you to go watch custodians SWEEP water bottles dropped on floor of student center.Timeless. (see B/W photos from Compass 1972!) Habits are hard to change in one fell swoop. Steps... but, yes, metal reusable would be lovely.
Glenn Wolff, LCSW
11:22 pm on Friday, February 10, 2012
Way to go Liz!
Best regards,
Glenn Wolff, LCSW
Theresa
8:18 pm on Monday, February 13, 2012
Good Luck... great idea!